Check out their video here!

Over at Cathie Filian’s blog, there is a great DIY project to make your very own Modern Grass Painting.  In five simple steps and a couple of hours, you too can have a very cool and contemporary piece of artwork ready for your wall in one afternoon!

Enjoy.

How exactly is the Handmade Holiday Craft Fair that we’re putting on with the fantastic folks at the Third Ward the epitome of awesomeness? In what ways does it embody all the magic and wonder of the holiday spirit, you ask? Well, it’s shopping AND a party. A chance to buy gifts to buy AND receive plenty of free goodies yourself. And an opportunity to donate canned goods to the Food Bank of Newfair wares York and feel all generous. You’ll support local artists and crafters — and if there’s a place to invest your hard-earned dollars these days, it’s back into Brooklyn. Also, with just over 50 vendors and a huge space, this fair is more intimate, fun and focused and less overwhelming than some others we can think of. Get all your Christmas shopping done in one fell swoop, or just for snacks and the opportunity to take some festive photos in the costume photobooth by Deluxa.

Handmade Holiday Craft Fair

Sunday, December 7, 2008, 12-7pm

Third Ward, 195 Morgan Ave. Brooklyn, NY

Urban Craft Uprising is truly a unique showcase for rising indie craft stars, and a venue for holiday shoppers to marvel over one-of-a-kind, avant-garde creations, and at no charge to the public.

The annual show (now in its fourth year) is renowned for drawing the most creative, unique, and cream-of-the-crop crafters from around the region-and even some vendors from as far away as Boston and Toronto!

For more information, visit: www.urbancraftuprising.com

City Councilmen Eric Gioia (D-Queens) and Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) will introduce a bill next week that would stop city agencies from buying bottled water and water coolers for workers at city agencies.

The city spends $2.1 million annually on bottled water, according to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.

“New York City has some of the cleanest water in the country, and we should use it,” said Gioia.

He noted that the move would also save on storage and disposal costs and help the environment by reducing waste and truck traffic for water-delivery services.

The City Council has already imposed a similar ban on its offices.

Felder installed a $400 heating and cooling filter in his office this year, which he said was a more economical choice.

The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done – men who are creative, inventive and discoverers”

~ Jean Piaget (Swiss philosopher, natural scientist and developmental theorist, well known for his theory of cognitive development)

1. The average cost of a Christmas tree in NYC is over $200.
2. How the hell will I get this to my apartment?
3. I will be with my family out-of state somewhere while my overpriced tree shrivels and dies.
4. I will have a mess to clean up when I get back to my tenement-heated apartment because said tree has dehydrated and died.
5. I will be one of those people who throw their sad, overpriced trees on the sidewalk before the garbage men come and unceremoniously feed them to the garbage trucks.  It really is a sad sight and breaks my post-Xmas joy.

Well, do I have a solution for you.  How about a cardboard tree?  Some smart guys from Chi-town came up with an urban and eco-friendly way of celebrating the holiday with this awesome product aptly named The Cardboard Tree.  Not only is the life of existing cardboard extended by using recycled corrogated cardboard for its tree and packaging; a portion of the profits are donated to Arbor Day Foundation’s Trees for America program. 

At a low-cost price of $29.95, you can happily shove it under your bed or sofa for sakekeeping until next year!  Or of course, you could recycle it for something else.

Oh, and did I fail to mention it even comes with cardboard ornaments.  So awesome!

December 8
Art vs. Craft – Milwaukee, WI
Handmade Market – Chicago, IL
Holiday Craft Extravaganza- Detroit, MI
Bust Craftacular- New York, NY

December 9
Squidfire – Baltimore, MD
Bizarre Bazaar – Boston, MA
Atomic Holiday Bazaar – Sarasota, FL
Rebel Rabbit – Portland, OR

December 15
Craft Mutiny – Washington, DC
Bazaar Bizarre – San Francisco, CA

December 16
Rebel Rabbit – Portland, OR
Crafty Wonderland – Portland, OR

December 22
PDX Etsy Holiday|Solstice Fair – Portland, OR

Buy Handmade!

In any case, if I were to invest in some pets, it would definitely be these:

Check out some more pictures at Miwa Koizumi’s PET project…

What I really love about Miwa’s project is her ability create something beautiful and useful out of the millions of plastic water bottles that get thrown away each day…and end up in landfills…unused and UNRECYCLED!!!!

I have a particular anger toward companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi for their use of bottling tap water, in brands like Dasani and Aquafina.  Tap water.  Their genius marketing villians have convinced millions of people to pay money for what they can get for free. 

A recent survey by students at Trinity College showed:

Additionally, over 40 percent of bottled water is actually tap water that has been filtered or otherwise treated. In a blind taste test conducted by BYOB outside Mather during dinner one evening, most students reported no notable difference in the quality of the Hartford tap water and the Aquafina bottled water.

In short, as summarized by the National Geographic:

In fact, Americans buy more bottled water than any other nation in the world, adding 29 billion water bottles a year to the problem. In order to make all these bottles, manufacturers use 17 million barrels of crude oil. That’s enough oil to keep a million cars going for twelve months.

Imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. That’s about how much oil was needed to produce the bottle.

So why don’t more people drink water straight from the kitchen faucet? Some people drink bottled water because they think it is better for them than water out of the tap, but that’s not true. In the United States, local governments make sure water from the faucet is safe. There is also growing concern that chemicals in the bottles themselves may leach into the water.

People love the convenience of bottled water. But maybe if they realized the problems it causes, they would try drinking from a glass at home or carrying water in a refillable steel container instead of plastic.

Unfortunately, for every six water bottles we use, only one makes it to the recycling bin. The rest are sent to landfills. Or, even worse, they end up as trash on the land and in rivers, lakes, and the ocean. Plastic bottles take many hundreds of years to disintegrate.

Water is good for you, so keep drinking it. But think about how often you use water bottles, and see if you can make a change.

And yes, you can make a difference. Remember this: Recycling one plastic bottle can save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for six hours.

So let’s all take a note from Miwa Koizuma, and let’s find better ways to recycle our single use water bottles – or better yet, how about just drink the damn tap water! 

Thanks homies.